Atu XV The Devil: "Ye shall be as gods"

Atu XV, the Devil, is easily the most misunderstood card in the entire pack, and yet, for Crowley, it was a card of tremendous importance. Of course, the idea of Satan was deeply significant to Crowley, so much so that Crowley is often described as "the father of modern Satanism." This is a subject endlessly up for debate, but I believe it's important to try to figure out what Satan meant to Crowley as an esoteric symbol. One can obviously draw biographical connections between Crowley and the Devil (remember his mother called him "the Beast," which led him to adopt the title for himself as the prophet of Thelema; he also had issues with his father, who I believe represented the demiurgic god of law and authority for Crowley), but what does he actually have to say about this symbol in regards to tarot? How can we come to fear the Devil less as Crowley learned, in order to strip ourselves from backward thinking?

Firstly, we must reevaluate the mythology of Satan. As we know, the devil was the serpent which caused the Fall of man and woman, resulting in their expulsion from Eden. Yet, a line that is often overlooked in Genesis is 3:5, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Additionally, in Genesis 3:22, God says, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever..." Clearly the Devil wasn't lying, so why should he be known as the deceiver? Also important to understanding the devil is a well-known bit from Qabbalistic Gematria. Both the words for messiah (Meshiach) and serpent (nachash) add up to 358. Therefore, there is some deep-seated connection between the devil and salvation. Additionally, Crowley reminds us that Satan is associated with Set, the Egyptian lord of the desserts in the south, as opposed to Nuit who rules the northern regions.

Like any tarot card, trump XV has a number of Qabbalistic and astrological attributions that we must also look into if we are to truly understand its overall message. The Devil represents the sign of Capricorn, which is ruled by Saturn, Mars is exalted therein. It is therefore associated with the depths of winter, when the sun starts to move northward from the southern hemisphere. XV also connects Tiphareth to Hod and is therefore the influence of the True Self (or Christ Consciousness) upon the reason. This is absolutely crucial to understand if we are to see the Devil in a more positive light. The True Self or Christ-like identity is the hub of the individual consciousness. It is the highest expression of individuality within the consciousness as it stems directly from Kether, the original concealed point of singular consciousness that is beyond the abyss. The Devil thus represents the affirmation of true divine individuality within the intellect, the rational mind. Individuality is ultimately "proven" to our intellects by our integration of sensory knowledge, for if I feel pain, I believe that only I am feeling it; likewise, if I touch an object, my brain knows that I was not what received the touch, but rather was the one who touched something else.

The connection between XV The Devil and the senses is confirmed by the fact that the trump's letter is Ayin, which when spelled out in full is the word for "eye," or "fountain." Let us also remember that Capricorn is the cardinal sign of earth, the element of physicality. Given the meanings of the other zodiacal earth trumps, the Devil's association with the senses is not implausible; if the Capricorn is the senses, then the Hierophant as Taurus represents rote custom and practice that the body is taught to do, and Virgo in the Hermit is that same body ready to undergo cultivation and redemption.

This relationship between the Devil, the senses, and individuality is analogous with the mythology of the Devil. He is a figure who taught mankind independence from God, and thereby condemned them paradoxically to misery and greatness. For that reason he must not be seen as evil, but as entirely ambivalent; as Crowley says in his description of the trump: "The sign of Capricornus is rough, harsh, dark, even blind; the impulse to create takes no account of reason, custom, or foresight. It is divinely unscrupulous, sublimely careless of result."

And yet, oddly enough, the Devil is clearly associated with salvation. He stems from Tiphareth, the Christ-like redeeming sun; as the Serpent he numerologically corresponds to the word Messiah; and finally, in Liber 777, Crowley associates the 26th path on the Tree of Life (the path of XV the Devil) with the god Bacchus, a Roman deity very much associated with both divine ecstasy and human salvation.

Let us return to the what Crowley has to say about Atu XV: (I'll sum up the main points)
- "This card represents creative energy in its most material form..."
- "The card represents Pan Pangenetor, the All-Begetter," who also leaps "upon the highest and most secret mountains of the earth."
- It is associated with the divine madness of spring and high desolate places.
- The phallus in the background pierces "the ring of the body of Nuith." His wand extends into the depths of the earth. Therefore, the Devil exults in all things from the lowest to the high. "He represents the finding of ecstasy in every phenomenon, however naturally repugnant; he transcends all limitations; he is Pan; he is All."

Clearly the most obvious emphasis here is on the Devil's role as the creator of all materiality. How could that possibly be? Crowley also tells us that, as the later Ayin, O in other words, the Devil takes part in the name of God, IAO (a Golden Dawn god name for the Holy Guardian Angel). It is therefore part of a trinity with the Hermit and the Fool (Yod and Aleph respectively) which make up a hieroglyph of masculine creative energy as expressed in the HGA. Let us remember that the Masculine corresponds to the primary source of divine individuality within an entity. The Devil therefore fits nicely in with this triad. And as far as creation is concerned, we must return to the connection between XV and Ayin, "eye" and "fountain." We must note that this is clearly suggestive of the phallus, seen in the background of the card, which has has a sort of "eye" and is also a "fountain" of creation. But can we not also suppose that the analogy works backwards? Can the human eye itself be a kind of phallus, constantly creating everything? Can we furthermore extend the "eye" to all the senses, as we mentioned before all the senses were integral in understanding the Devil? Therefore, the doctrine would state that the senses of the individual point of consciousness perpetually create existence without any discrimination, as we cannot prevent our eyes from seeing what is in front of them. What does happen is the brain discriminates the information it receives through the senses and filters out the information it doesn't know how to process, mainly because it hasn't experienced that information before and therefore has nothing in its neural network to compare it to. Could this be why the Devil represents things we fear? It's the totality of the universe that we are aware of on a remotely exalted level (the secret mountains of the earth), but which we are ultimately afraid of. It is the frenzied awesomeness of the unknown. We must be open to the divine madness of the Devil in order to expand our understanding of what is actually possible, as opposed to what we think is possible.

This certainly puts reality into context, and affirms the old Magickal doctrine that "every act is a Magickal act." By sensing things through the body we come to believe that those things are in fact real, and thereby collapse the infinite waves of potential which make up matter into a single possibility that we can experience and integrate into our knowledge. We are creating life around us constantly. We must know this in order "to be as gods." Here is the hub of the Devil's ultimate message - you are a god because, through your individuality, you create everything around you. Perhaps Satan/Set rules the desert because this "reality" is ultimately barren as it exists below the Abyss, in the real as opposed to the ideal. This forces us to entirely reevaluate the Fall. Was it humanity that sinned or God himself? This is what certain sectors of Qabbalistic theory suggest - that the Fall occurred when God became curious about its own potential nature. Indeed, how can a Being that is ultimate and infinite come to know itself if it is in fact everything and cannot conceive of any difference within itself? Given all this evidence, it is clear why, as the founder of Thelema, a philosophy/religion that, at its heart, focuses on personal liberation and apotheosis, Crowley would undoubtedly have seen the archetype of the Devil as crucial in his cosmology.

Thus, in a tarot reading, we can confidently add a new set of divinatory meanings for the card: confidence, self-initiative, revolution in the name of one's desires, powerful creation of physical things, general carnality, assertion of the self, perhaps even being shown the truth through physical evidence. The standard definitions of obsession, addiction, dark thoughts, evil, imprisonment, etc., can be relegated to the ill-aspected section of the Devil's definitions. For we are all aware of how enticing the senses can in fact be, and how we can sometimes be slaves to them. Yet, in this regard, we must be careful - note that the Devil does not fall upon the sephira of Netzach, the passions and emotions, but rather on Hod, the intellect. So in this light he does not grip us by our desires, but instead enslaves our minds, convincing them to see stubbornly and narrowly. In his lowest form, therefore, he can be associated with ignorance, as Crowley suggests.

Ultimately it is all very mysterious but we must stop viewing the Devil in an anachronistic light. The Christian concept of the Devil is worthless. He himself is not evil - he is indifferent, and is in the right by simply following his Will and purpose. More importantly, he is an exalted aspect of you, not some external wickedness. That's absurd. We as confused beings create evil with our myopic concepts of reality, enforcing stagnant modes of living upon individuals, causing damage to others in our foolish embrace of the illusory ego.

This is the nature of the Fall, and how the Devil can be simultaneously condemner, savior, creator, imbecile, Satan/Set, and God. He is truly Pan. He is All.

VI The Lovers: Reconciling Christianity and Thelema through the Writings of Teresa of Avila

Aleister Crowley's disdain for Christianity is well known. As he considered himself the Anti-Christ, believing in his mission to destroy the Church, his writings and cosmology tend to be violently skewed, riddled with imagery many find Satanic and disturbing. Granted, one can relate this to the fact that Horus - the supposed ruler of the new Aeon - is attributable to Mars (see Israel Regardie's The Tree of Life), and is therefore meant to be vengeful and merciless, quite the opposite of the usual Christian message of suffering and humility. Crowley's attempt to reconfigure Atu XII, The Hanged Man, as a hieroglyph not of suffering but of redemption echoes this anti-Christian sentiment. I would like to suggest in this article that Crowley's Thelema and Christianity can in fact be reconciled, and should be, for in this age it is necessary for us to see the similarities between our various beliefs. I believe that is one of the true messages of the new Aeon supposedly set upon us.

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) was declared the first female Doctor of the Church in 1970, meaning that she wrote sufficiently enough about orthodox Church doctrine in a lucid and revelatory way to be considered on par with St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory (highly,

highly revered sources of masculine Christian discourse throughout the Medieval/Renaissance

periods). Teresa is known mainly for her experiences of divine ecstasy, as remarkably depicted in the Bernini sculpture (left). Her descriptions of these experiences, as well as her methods of prayer, are quite obviously related to the Neoplatonic/Kabbalistic/alchemical/

Magical/Hindu understanding of prayer and enlightenment, which Crowley based his Thelema on.

Enlightenment in much of these Western doctrines according to the Golden Dawn, Crowley, and countless others, was conceptualized by the revolving Tetragrammaton formula - YHVH - by which the physical body is redeemed by Knowledge and Conversation between the conscious self and the Highest Self (Holy Guardian Angel), spiritual marriage with that entity, and eventual union with that entity in order to rise to Godhead, by which one recognizes the root of their divinity, inherent oneness with everything, and attains enlightenment. (More on this below.)

Teresa's spiritual experiences are very similar to this. First, she explains that she stopped praying aloud as was the common practice, but rather focused inwardly and remained silent, meditating on Christ's presence within her. She writes, "When picturing Christ in the way I have mentioned... I used unexpectedly to experience a consciousness of the presence of God, of such a kind that I could not possibly doubt that He was within me or that I was wholly engulfed in Him." This is by definition the meaning of the Lovers trump. It is a recognition of the spiritual "other" as part of the self, known to alchemists as the first stage of coniunctio (marriage) - ironically called separatio. In fact, Teresa herself understands this relationship as a marriage, referring to Christ as her Spouse many times. I feel that in her case, the terms Spouse carries much more weight than in reference to any general nun who considers herself spiritually betrothed to Christ upon taking the veil. The beautiful moment she describes which became the inspiration for Bernini's statue is the real marriage, the moment when she sees an angel unlike any other ("in bodily form, which is not usual with me; for though angels are often represented to me, it is only in my mental vision"), who plunges a fiery spear into her heart and sets her"wholly on fire with a great love of God." (Princess of Disks much? Impregnated with the divine seed of the phallic Yod? Hmmm...)

Additionally, Israel Regardie explains in his Tree of Life that much of the process of enlightenment is conducted out of the body through Astral Projection (self-willed out-of-body experience), and that is precisely what St. Teresa undergoes. Teresa says, "Oh, my God, how clear is the meaning of that verse about asking for the wings of a dove and how right the author was... It is evident that he is referring to the flight taken by the spirit when it soars high above all created things, and above itself first of all; but it is a gentle and a joyful flight and also a silent one." Similarly, "In these raptures the soul seems no longer to animate the body, and thus the natural heat of the body is felt to be very sensibly diminished." This is a typical sign of the absence of the astral body (obviously not the entire body, which would result in death). Her point that the journey is silent is particularly intriguing, since Crowley speaks endlessly of Harpocrates, the Lord of Silence who is the twin of Horus and is representative of the silence of meditation and the element of spirit (see The Book of Thoth).

Also intriguing is Teresa's emphasis on the worth of the body to God, something also harking back to the Tetragrammaton formula. In Tetragrammaton, each letter represents one of the four elements - Y = fire, H (primal) = water, V = air, and H (final) = earth. In Tarot, we see this as the court cards, each letter corresponding to Knights (Kings), Queens, Princes (Knights), and Princesses (Pages/Valets) respectively. The Princess (earth) is the child born of the marriage between the Knight and the Queen (fire and water), and is the lesser twin sister to the more divine son, as represented by the Prince. She is expected to marry the Prince, ascend to the throne of her mother, kill the old Knight and replace him with the Prince, and thereby redeem the earth (the harrowing of Hell, the Ascension of Mary). The body is synonymous in Hermetic Kabbala with earth, and therefore one of the goals of enlightenment is to better the condition of physical existence, to bring spirit back down into more perfect union with matter (the creation process in the first place, the blessing of the Holy Spirit) in order to redeem it.

Teresa's writings oddly enough include details of this experience: "The Lord is pleased that the body should have a share in [the ecstasy] because of its obedience to the will of the soul. After the recovery of the consciousness, if the rapture has been deep, the faculties may remain absorbed for a day or two... and be as if in a state of stupor, so that they seem to be no longer themselves." This is clearly an unknowing nod to the Kundalini Awakening, which Crowley insisted upon as the goal of meditation

(Atu XI Lust) (Kundalini seen right) and the key to enlightenment. Furthermore, Teresa writes, "[Ecstasy] is much more beneficial than union: the effects it produces are far more important and it has a

great many more operations, for union gives the impression of being just the same at the beginning, in the middle and at the end, and it all happens interiorly. But the ends of these raptures are of a higher degree, and the effects they produce are both interior and exterior." Frankly, I think that's brilliant. Teresa recognizes the positive outward effect these ecstasy's produce, and discusses their merit in the same vein as Crowley, who attributes ecstasy to madness and divine bliss (Bacchus, as in Atu 0 and XV in The Book of Thoth).

And finally, Teresa makes interesting remarks on the nature of True Will - the entire point of Thelema. She writes that before she experienced God within herself she was very disobedient to the will of God. She claims that "the Lord became more desirous of preparing me for the state of life which was best for me." In a similar vein, she says, "O God, in how many ways did His Majesty gradually prepare me for the state in which He was to be pleased to use me! In how many ways, against my own will, did He constrain me to exercise restraint upon myself!" This can be seen as an example of "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Teresa understands that God has a higher purpose for her that she must adhere to, lest she remain wallowing in sin and attachment to the world. Is it also not interesting, albeit probably coincidental, that the imagery of the angel piercing her heart like Eros is very similar to the imagery in Atu VI, The Lovers, in which Eros is directing the arrow of Thelema (True Will) at the heart of the Empress/Luna/Venus, who is marrying the Emperor/Sol/Mars ? (See The Book of Thoth for the explanation of these planetary associations, as well as a bit about the crucial role of Eros in this formula.)

Thus, it is indeed possible to reconcile Christianity with Crowley's Thelema, and in fact, I believe they help elucidate each other. The mysteries of one are often explained better in the other, and I have found studying both to be very helpful. In the perfect words of Goethe, "Alles vergengliche," (All is allegory), and ultimately Christianity and Thelema are both intricately orchestrated allegories. In this example, both found union (to continue the theme) in the archetype of The Lovers, a card representative of openness to other sources of inspiration. I'll just leave it at that.

(All quotes by Teresa were taken from her autobiography The Life of Teresa of Jesus, edited by E. Allison Peers)